No fewer than 3000 indigent women would benefit from the Federal Government’s Cash Grant for Rural Women Project’ in Kogi State, the Minister, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Farouk said on Tuesday.
The Minister announced the plan during the flag-off of the “Federal government Cash Grant for Rural Women Project at Government House in Lokoja.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Bashir Nura Alkali, the Minister said that a cash grant of N20,000 would be disbursed to about 125,000 poor women across the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
”Our target in Kogi State is to disburse the grant to about 3,000 beneficiaries across all Local Government Councils. The grant is expected to increase the income and productive assets of target beneficiaries,” the Minister said.
”We hope that the beneficiaries of this programme will make good use of the grant to generally contribute towards improving their living standard by using the fund as a seed to boost their trade and business for greater income”.
She enjoined the beneficiaries to judiciously utilise the fund and not to see it as their share of the so-called National Cake, stressing that the Grant for Rural Women programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of President Buhari’s Administration, to give a lifting hand to some of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens in the country.
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”It is consistent with the President’s new national vision of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years. It is designed to provide a one-off grant to some of the poorest and most vulnerable women in rural and peri-urban areas of the country”.
Farouk equally explained that President Muhammadu Buhari, initiated the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) in 2016, as a strategy for reducing poverty and enhancing social inclusion.
The NSIP is adjudged as the largest social protection programme in Africa with over $1billion earmarked annually to cause positive changes in the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable in the country.
”Since its introduction in 2016, the social investment programme has impacted positively the lives of the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria as millions of households have benefitted from NSIP interventions in the last 5 years.
According to the Minister, it included payment of a monthly Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) of N5,000.00 to 1 million indigent Nigerians to protect them against economic shocks and gradually elevate them out of poverty.
Over a million micro and small business owners, according to th e Minsiter accessed loans to boost productivity, increase income and reduce poverty under the Government Enterprise Enhancement Programme (GEEP).
”The N-Power programme provided temporary income-generating opportunities for 500,000 unemployed youths in the first instance while over eight million primary 1-3 pupils in public schools currently are receiving one meal per day under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.
”It is because of this, that President Muhammadu Buhari graciously approved the expansion of the programme to touch more lives and lift more Nigerians above the poverty breadline.
The Federal Government is committed to ensure that the right beneficiaries were targeted, and to enhance the impact on target beneficiaries, adding that the Ministry was also working tirelessly to address some of the socio-economic problems that are bedevilling all parts of the country by strengthening the humanitarian-development-peace nexus as well as other poverty reduction programmes.
”We believe with the complementary effort of the State Government, the target beneficiaries will all be adequately covered within the next few days. I am optimistic that with the support and cooperation of Your Excellency and other stakeholders present here, we will remain on track to improving the livelihood of the ordinary Nigerians,” the Minister said.
In his remarks, the State Governor, Yahaya Bello, thanked the President for the initiative and for always putting the issue of women in the front burner in his Administration.
Represented by his Deputy, Edward Onoja, the governor said the initiative would add values to the wellbeing of the beneficiaries and boost the socioeconomic of the state and the country at large.
He commended the minister and her team for their consistency in ensuring that the wide gap between the poor and the rich was bridged through the effective implementation of the NSIP project over the past five years.
”Kogi has also keyed into the Mr President’s programmes of empowering women and the vulnerable; it has been the tradition in Kogi by His Excellency, Gov. Yahaya Bello over the past five years.
The governor further congratulated the President over the safe return of over 300 schoolgirls abducted recently in Zamfara State.
In their goodwill messages, the NSIP Focal Person in Kogi, Suleiman Onyekehi, and the State’s Commissioner for Women Affairs, Fatima Buba, both commended the federal government for the initiative, saying it would go a long way in alleviating the suffering of the indigent and vulnerable women in the state.
The project was inaugurated by the governor, and a sum of N20, 000 was presented to each beneficiary at the venue including persons living with a disability.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Queen Christopher, thanked the President, the Minister and the Governor for the wonderful program for a person living with disability and vulnerable women in society.
”I also believe that with the help of this money, we are going to use it very well and it will be a plus to our society”, she said.
